17
“Ladies, please! Keep your voices down!”
Mrs. Jamieson, Kitty, and Blanche were all arguing again, this time with each other.
Aurelia had stood by the table just before midnight with her fingers crossed; she was that desperate to see her first batch of characters appear again, but luck wasn’t on her side.
Instead, the trio of women had reappeared, and at first Aurelia thought she’d managed to get through to them. Dressed to impress and with her hair carefully arranged for once, she’d greeted them all with a smile, in spite of her initial disappointment.
“Welcome! So lovely to have you back.”
“Back again? I thought I made myself perfectly clear on my last visit.” Mrs. Jamieson stood taller and tapped the floor with her parasol to emphasize each word as she said, “I do not wish to patronize this establishment.”
“I understand,” Aurelia said evenly. “But this shop works in mysterious ways. I can’t control who appears here. So I’m very sorry for the bother, but for tonight at least, we’re stuck with each other.”
“Just… go outside again,” Blanche demanded, waving her hand toward the door.
It was an appealing option, but Aurelia suddenly felt obstinate in the face of their domineering attitudes.
“No. Tonight we’re just going to have to chat and get to know one another.
I know you don’t like it here, I know you think I’m just a shopkeeper, but I liked your books and I’d appreciate the chance to get to know you.
This might be”—will be, Aurelia added to herself—“our last night together, so you’ll be back to your books soon enough and good riddance to me. ”
“It is something to hope for, at any rate,” Mrs. Jamieson said under her breath.
“I don’t mind staying for another evening,” Kitty said quietly. “I don’t much like books, but I like your dress and shoes. Is that the fashion here? Where are we, exactly?”
“We’re in London,” Aurelia said, grateful to have an opening. “And this is the fashion here during my time, which is nearly two hundred years after your novel was written.”
“Oh! You’ve come to us from the future, then?” Kitty whispered in awe.
“Well, it’s more like you’ve come to me from the past.”
“Not by choice,” Mrs. Jamieson cut in.
“Yes, understood,” Aurelia snapped back impatiently.
Her mind worked to try to think of something to say to the women, then the obvious occurred to her.
“You know, usually two characters appear from each book on that table there, but only one of you has appeared from each of your books.”
“How very astute,” Blanche said witheringly.
“Sometimes,” Aurelia went on, ignoring her, “that can mean that a character is unhappy with how their story ended… But that doesn’t seem to fit all of you, does it?”
“It certainly does. My story has a horrible ending,” Blanche declared.
“Which is?”
“You said you’ve read my book, but clearly you haven’t. Or at least if you did, you weren’t paying attention.”
“What don’t you like about what happened to you, then?”
“My fiancé ran off with that little governess! What is there to be happy about?”
Aurelia thought that Blanche calling Mr. Rochester her fiancé was stretching things a bit but decided to be generous to avoid another argument.
“Jane did you a favor, really. I’m sure word must have spread about what happened after he chose her—you heard about the fire, and his first wife?” At Blanche’s nod of confirmation, Aurelia went on. “And you still wish he’d chosen you over Jane?”
“Obviously not. He can have her, the little mouse of a thing. Well, more like a rat.”
“And yet you couldn’t manage to catch his eye instead of her?” shot Mrs. Jamieson.
“A clever, conniving rat,” Blanche amended, her face growing hot.
“Sounds like sour grapes to me,” said Mrs. Jamieson. “My story was much more tragic.”
“Tragic?”
Aurelia meant it as a challenge, but Mrs. Jamieson clearly took it as an invitation to continue.
“You might not be able to understand this given your lack of familial connections, but when one’s family, raised to a certain standard, stoops so low as to marry below them, it comes as a veritable shock.”
“Do you mean your relative marrying a surgeon?” Aurelia asked.
“Your relative married a surgeon, Mrs. Jamieson? Why that is practically a tradesman,” scoffed Blanche. “Are you telling us you have a tradesman in the family?”
“What a suggestion!” Mrs. Jamieson hissed. “You apologize this instant!”
The women’s voices rose as they began squabbling, and Aurelia’s efforts to quiet them were entirely ineffective until she turned to Kitty.
“What about you, Kitty? What are you unhappy about in your story?”
Mrs. Jamieson and Blanche stilled for a moment to listen.
“My sister, Lydia, is younger than me and is already married, and Jane and Lizzy are married, too, which leaves me at home with boring Mary, and I just know I shall never make a match as good as Lizzy and Jane, or one as handsome as Lydia.”
Kitty paused to catch her breath.
“That is your sad story? That hardly qualifies, my dear,” Mrs. Jamieson said.
“Yes, do let us know when something truly dreadful happens to you,” Blanche added with a smirk.
That threw Kitty into a deluge of tears and angry shouting, and now all three women were arguing with one another.
Aurelia looked on, exasperated, and it dawned on her that she’d never met a group of characters that she didn’t like.
They were always eager to share their stories, to learn about her life, and to get to know the other characters.
But these three women were difficult, angry, and willful.
They had no interest in Aurelia or each other.
How was it that her first encounter with a character she didn’t like involved three of them, all at the same time?
“Aunt Aurelia?”
Aurelia’s head whipped up to see Julia standing on the mezzanine, looking down at them.
“I’m pinching myself and not waking up, so don’t try telling me this is another dream,” Julia said, holding out her arm and pinching it dramatically as she climbed down the stairs.
Aurelia had been distracted by her own thoughts, forgetting for a moment that she needed to keep the women from shouting and waking her niece.
“Oh… damn it,” Aurelia said under her breath.
At a gasp from the ladies, she turned toward them.
“Blasphemy!” exclaimed Mrs. Jamieson.
Blanche rolled her eyes, while Kitty looked unsure about who she should side with.
“Right. Okay… In my time it’s not really an issue to say that, but I get it. I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean, ‘in your time’?” Julia asked.
“No, never mind,” Aurelia said quickly, turning back to Julia. “I’m sorry we woke you. If you just run back upstairs, I’ll be there in a minute.”
Aurelia barely had time to process the fact that Julia was there, again, and that the characters hadn’t disappeared when she’d arrived, again.
Meanwhile Biscuit, who she’d left looking comatose on his back in front of a fan in the living room, suddenly came trotting onto the mezzanine through the open door to the flat, tail wagging in happiness at discovering where the action was taking place that evening.
“I’m not leaving,” Julia said, crossing her arms. “You lied to me before. You said I was dreaming and people are here—again—in weird clothes, in the middle of the night.”
“Weird? How dare you! Insult upon insult, and now from this poppet wearing nothing but her underthings!” cried Blanche, eyeing Julia’s tank top and shorts.
Aurelia turned back to the women, feeling as though she were being tossed back and forth like a cricket ball.
“Is that the fashion, then, Aurelia?” Kitty asked, pointing at Julia. “I thought you said your dress was in fashion, but hers is a much different style of attire, is it not?”
Julia snorted with laughter.
“What? This is in fashion—I bought it a few months ago,” Aurelia told Julia defensively, forgetting for a moment the predicament she was in.
“In fashion for old people, maybe.”
“Old people? Really?” Aurelia couldn’t help herself.
“Disrespectful,” muttered Mrs. Jamieson as she shook her head.
“Where are the others?” Julia asked. “Where’s Jane Rochester?”
“Do not use that woman’s name in my presence,” Blanche demanded, narrowing her eyes at Julia in warning.
“Don’t you like her? She seemed nice enough,” Julia said with a shrug.
“Nice enough? That little governess stole my fiancé, Mr. Rochester.”
“Oh,” Julia said, drawing out the word. “Are you supposed to be that Blanche Ingram lady? Are you all dressing up like characters?”
“Dressing up? You’re one to talk. What on earth are you wearing? Your mother should be ashamed, letting you out of the house like that,” Mrs. Jamieson hissed.
Julia gave her the side eye, then looked around at the women, taking in their angry postures and flushed cheeks before saying, “Your book club is getting a bit worked up tonight.”
“Yes, tempers are flaring a little,” Aurelia said helplessly.
“I hardly need lessons in manners from you two,” Blanche said, looking them up and down. “Is this the shopkeeper’s little daughter?”
“I’m her niece,” Julia said fiercely. “And anyway, Blanche was never Mr. Rochester’s fiancée. If you’re going to pretend to be her, then you ought to at least read the book.”
Blanche looked as though she were going to slap Julia, and Aurelia pulled her back protectively. For a moment she’d forgotten that there was no real risk of harm since Blanche would turn into mist if she tried touching her.
“Let’s just have a timeout here, okay?” Aurelia told everyone before pushing Julia into the back corner of the shop near the staircase. “Look, I’ll come up in a minute,” she whispered to her. “I just need to get them sorted.”
“You lied to me,” Julia said again, staring daggers at her.
“I know, but I’ll explain everything later.”
Though, of course, Aurelia couldn’t think of how she was going to explain anything, like what was happening or why she’d lied to Julia.
Seeing Aurelia and Julia so near to him, Biscuit padded down the stairs. He pawed at their legs, wanting their attention.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Julia said stubbornly.
There was a ‘tsk’ sound from Mrs. Jamieson at this. The women were clearly listening in.
“If she does not wish to leave, we would be only too happy to do so,” Mrs. Jamieson called out.
Aurelia tried to ignore them and focused on Julia.
“These aren’t the friendliest sort of people,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean for them to come here tonight, and now I’m just trying to get them to leave, which will be much easier if you’re upstairs.”
“Excuse me, I see you’re very busy, but could you please keep your animal under control?”
Aurelia turned to see Biscuit approaching the women, with Blanche pulling her skirts up as though he might contaminate her. Aurelia’s heart stopped: if Julia saw Biscuit moving around them, she’d see them shifting back and forth between letter-strewn mist and solid forms—
“Holy shit!” Julia shouted.
Too late.